Claytonia saxosa

Brandegee's spring beauty

Family: Montiaceae · Type: annual · Native

Brandegee's spring beauty is a California native annual found in the Klamath Ranges, northern coastal redwood, and northern coastal ranges in open, rocky serpentine sites at elevations of 800 to 2,150 meters. Flowering from March to May, this delicate plant produces pale pink flowers 5 to 8 millimeters long in small clusters of 2 to 10 blooms. Growing with tiny spreading to erect stems 1 to 3 centimeters tall, it forms dense basal clusters of leaves. Its leaves are primarily basal, crowded and oblong to obovate, less than 2 centimeters long with obtuse tips, accompanied by small cauline leaves less than 1.5 centimeters in length. The fruit is 2 to 3.5 millimeters long, containing a small elliptic seed.

Habitat: Open, rocky sites, generally serpentine

Bloom period: Mar-May

Elevation: 800-2150 m

Bioregions: KR, NCoRO, NCoRH

California counties: Tehama, Colusa, Humboldt, Lake, Mendocino, Siskiyou, Trinity, Shasta

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.